Nailed It Challenge!

My kids love the show, Nailed It!  It is rather funny, and we all appreciate the show because they have seen me make fancy cakes before.  My kids like it when the contestants utterly fail.  

They have been wanting me to create a Nailed it challenge for them so we turned it into one of our Christmas activities.  I created three different decorated cookies that everyone had to roll out, bake and then decorate.  They also each got to pick one cupcake Christmas Creation and recreate it.  They had a total of 40 minutes to complete everything.  I put all the supplies they would need in the center of the table and let them have at it.  

Estelle got to be partners with Dad, but everyone else worked totally on there own with no help.  

Natalia picked the Santa cupcakes.  Mine is on the left and she recreated the one on the right.  She did a good job and actually was the first to finish.

Sienna picked the elf cupcakes.  She was really running out of time at the end and getting a little stressed.  She did a great job and I was impressed that she had no help at all.  

Jodee picked the penguins.  Mine is on the right and she recreated the one of the left.  It was so fun having Jodee do the challenge with us.  Jodee and the girls binge watched the rest of the Christmas Nailed It season later that evening. 

Estelle and Hector did the snowman cupcakes.  Estelle one the cookie challenge, so she got to wear the baker's hat.  She was so proud of that hat!

It was super fun and the girls loved it so much.  It was so much prep work for me though...I'm not sure this will be a yearly tradition.  Maybe we can attach it to a different holiday; I already do so much baking/cooking at Christmas time.  

Bethlehem Day

The 23rd fell on Sunday this year, so we decided to make that a Bethlehem day.  We went to church, cooked middle eastern foods (Lamb, nuts, figs, lentils, bread, etc), and the girls performed the Nativity for us.  

The Nativity was quite the production.  The girls were in a mood to perform; they played multiple parts, had quick costume changes and lots of energy.  We may not have had much of the spirit in the performance, but it sure was entertaining.  Natalia as the angel was a highlight and Estelle quickly switching from Mary to a sheep was great.

Pre Christmas Fun with Jodee

One of our new favorite Christmas traditions is having Jodee come and spend Christmas with us.  The girls ask me almost every day in December when Jodee will get here.  This year, they had extra fun anticipating because Jodee had some Amazon packages arrive before she did.  Every time there was a knock on the door, the girls would run and find a box with Jodee's name on it and they were just convinced that they contained gifts for them.  We just put the boxes in the basement and left them for Jodee.  The girls wanted to know what was in the boxes so bad.  I picked Jodee up while the girls were still in school and we had all the gifts wrapped before they got home.  It took Natalia less the two seconds to see them all under the tree.  

We had a great time with Jodee!  We did a game tournament, watched movies, did lots of Holiday baking, went to a play, to the temple lights, hosted our ugly sweater party and just had fun being together.  

What not to do with a comb

I don't really need an explanation here.  The pictures really tell the story!  

For some reason, unbeknownst to even Natalia, my cute 9 year old decided to see what would happen if she kept twisting a comb around in her hair.  Well, she found out it means that she now has a hairstyle with bangs.  Haha, Natalia walked down the stairs with a blanket over her head and told me she needed to show me something and then revealed the comb stuck in her hair.  I thought, "no problem, I can get that out for you."  After twisting, pulling, maneuvering, applying conditioners for a half hour we decided that we had loosened it enough to give respectable looking bangs.  And Natalia has decided that twisting a comb in her hair is not something she plans to do again.  Ahh, life lessons...so much fun.  

At first Natalia didn't want us to tell anyone what  happened, but we convinced her that mishaps can either be embarrassing or turn into some of your best stories.  She embraced the later and has told everyone about why she has bangs now.  

More Christmas Fun

The girls asked everyday for two weeks, "when are we going to make gingerbread houses?"  They love it.  Making paper snowflakes was super fun too!  We love Christmas Time.